Light Blue Desire investigates the fluidity of language by lyrically mapping the elusive use of the word blue across different languages. The collection of idioms reveals a compendium of contradictions; concepts around a color that is both high and low, peaceful and pornographic, melancholic and manipulative, and consistently voted the world’s favorite color. How and why does blue seep into our speech, color our thoughts, lap into our languages?

The book’s format and typography draw influence from technical manuals, while the chapter design nods to the cyanometer, an eighteenth-century hand-painted instrument used to measure the blueness of the sky. These elements are balanced by the whimsical design of the blue idioms, which mimic the inherent nature of the idiom itself—an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent elements.

ISBN: 978-0-9908016-9-6